Memory Fever
by love.always.forever.1335
Summary: "You don't have to dare me. I'll go willingly. And I won't come back." Raph clicked through the bars of the turnstile. "This is the last you'll ever see of me, I promise." Rated T for Language and violence in later chapters. I do not own TMNT.
1. Chapter 1

A loud thud echoed throughout the dojo as the red banded vigilante hit the ground. He groaned in aggravation as he lifted himself back into a defensive stance, his sai pointed outward. His blue banded brother stood opposite him in an offensive stance. Raph's emerald eyes glared intensely into Leo's blue-gray ones. _Do it again, I dare you_, Raph thought. He kicked himself for allowing Leo to send him down the last time.

"Again" Splinter called, standing beside the tree watching his four sons fight. Mikey and Donnie were still amidst their first duel when Splinter called for Raph and Leo's second.

Leo charged toward Raph, the blades of his katanas pointing back as he ran. As he got closer to Raph, Leo swung the blades around and, yet again, sent Raph flying towards the floor. Leo sheathed his katanas with satisfaction as he watched his brother fall. He turned to look at his sensei and nodded his head. When Raph made a move to get up, Leo pushed him back down and pinned him down, his knees keeping Raph's arms from resisting. Leo grabbed Raph's sai and pointed them at Raph's forehead. "You're 0 for 2, little brother." Leo smirked, dropping the sai and getting off Raph. He extended a hand out to help Raph stand up; however Raph refused the help, pushing himself up with his own strength. He walked right past Leo, being certain to push Leo with his shoulder as he stormed right out of the dojo. Not long thereafter, there was the loud slamming of a bedroom door in the left corridor.

Leo sighed as he looked back at Splinter. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, gestures that Splinter returned. "That is enough for today, my sons." Splinter announced, halting Mikey and Donnie from their duel. "We will continue this lesson tomorrow." He said before walking away to the comfort of his own room.

Leo, Donnie, and Mikey stood together in the dojo. "What happened this time?" Donnie asked, fully aware of why their training was cut short for the third time that week. It was Tuesday.

"Hell if I know." Leo shrugged his shoulders, "All I did was beat him, you'd think by now he'd be used to it," he chuckled, not sure how much more he could take.

"Why does he have to leave all the time?" Mikey asked, casually slipping his nunchucks back into their sheaths on his sides.

"I don't know, Mikey. He's just stubborn, egotistical, and jealous." Leo admitted, "Whatever. If he wants to act like a child, he can. I don't even think I care anymore. It happens every single day." He started to walk out of the dojo, his youngest brothers trailing behind. They walked out into their living room, Donnie separating from the group to head down to his lab. Leo and Mikey took a seat in some beanbag chairs to watch some TV.

Some time passed and Raph emerged from his bedroom. Leo smirked over at him, "Hey, if you're done throwing yourself a pity party, we're gonna order a pizza soon."

"Fuck you. I don't have to take this shit, you know. I should not have to put up with this bull from the people I call my brothers." Raph started to go on a shouting rampage of how poorly he was treated, and how he was superior to all of them. The shouting caught Donnie's attention from the lab and he came running out. "You think you're so much better than me, don't you, Leo. You're nothing. You put yourself up on this pedestal; you believe you can do anything. But you are nothing at all. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I'm sick of the same fucking thing every day. I'm done putting up with all of your shit."

"If you're so done with everything, then go. No one here is making you stay. If we treat you so poorly, go and be on your own." Leo kept a calm attitude as he spoke to Raph, as to not play the shouting game with him.

"Fine, I will." Raph shouted back, walking towards the turnstile exits.

"Go. I dare you." Leo smirked, daring himself that Raph wouldn't just walk out on them like that.

"You don't have to fucking dare me. I'll go willingly. And I won't fucking come back." He clicked through the bars of the turnstile. "This is the last you'll ever see of me, I promise." He jumped down to the subway tracks and ran off to the surface.

Mikey looked at Leo, "Why did you do that? We gotta go after him!" He claimed, standing up from the couch and heading for the turnstiles himself.

"Mikey, no." Donnie called, cutting off the exit of the lair. "Just give him some time to cool down." He explained.

Leo nodded, "Exactly, he'll be back before nightfall." He sounded so confident, so sure that Raph would come back.

However, when nightfall came, Raph was still nowhere to be found. Splinter emerged from his room with the scent of pizza filling the air. He moved to fetch a slice for himself. When he entered the kitchen, he notices there was one bandana missing. "Where is Raphael?" He asked, nibbling into the hot cheese sliding off the greasy dough. No one responded, even though they all clearly heard him. They wore guilty looks that Splinter picked up on quickly. His eyes darted to Mikey, who looked the guiltiest of them all. He looked as though he had something to say. And so he was the one Splinter picked on. "Michelangelo, where is Raphael?" He asked, maintaining strong eye contact.

Mikey seemed to sweat with guilt. He tried to resist as much as he could, looking back at his brothers both giving him glares that clearly read "say nothing at all" But Mikey could not resist. "He left, sensei. He ran away, like three hours ago. We haven't seen him. Leo said he would some back before it got dark, but he never came back." he blurted out in one continuous breath.

Splinters eyes widened, "And none of you have gone to look for him. He may be in trouble. Or he may be hurt." He tried to remain calm.

"We know, sensei. We will go out right now and look for him." Leo responded, setting his dish down on the table. He grabbed his brothers by the wrists and pulled them out of their chairs and towards the surface world.

With darkness as their ally, they leaped to the rooftops and started their rounds around the city. Hours of empty search efforts led them to abandon their adventure. Leo, Donnie and Mikey sat on the ledge of a rooftop and sighed in unison. They'd looked everywhere. Every street corner and dead end. Every fire escape and sewer tunnel. If he were still in New York City at all, he was very good at hiding it.

"Do you think that he really left. Like left New York?" Mikey asked innocently, hoping no one would affirm his question.

Donnie shook his head, "Not likely. Where else would he go?"

"Maybe he just needs some more time to cool off. I'm sure he's still in New York. Let's give him until the morning." Leo suggested, stepping off the ledge. The siblings started back to their lair, each wondering where their red banded brother had run off to. Raph, however, did not return the morning after. Or the morning after that. Or the morning after that. In fact, he did not return.

- A/N: Hi there. I'd like to thank my lovely beta reader, Kalianna R. Landry, for going over this before publishing. Love you lots! I'll update the story every Sunday, so come back next Sunday for the next chapter. Thanks. Lots of Love

-Adrianna Bates


	2. Chapter 2 - In Times Passing

After a few weeks, Leo, Donnie, and Mikey stopped looking; after a few months, they stopped waiting; after a few years, they stopped remembering. Twenty years exactly. And during those twenty years, the name Raphael had vanished completely from their vocabularies. So much else had gone on, they had no time to sit around and wonder what ever became of their brutish brother.

After five years, with the help of their sensei, they put an official end to the Shredder and his foot clan. Shredder's body was cast down into the deepest trench off the New York coast line, weighed down by cement blocks. And with no heir to the Foot throne, the entire clan shriveled up until there was no one left. There were no more foot bots wreaking havoc across the city. No more watching their every step in fear that they were being watched. There was no more of any of it. And it brought about an era of relaxation between them. They had more time to hang out together in the lair. Donnie got to work on many useless gadgets, Leo got to perfect his attack methods, and Mikey mastered all of his video games. After almost a decade of fighting the Shredder, they were finally able to relax.

Though it didn't last forever. As time went on, the brothers noticed their master growing weaker and sicker. And their relaxing time was spent trying to prolong the ultimate death of their long time caretaker.

Donnie did everything he could to make their sensei well again. But whatever Donnie did only gave them more time. His death was inevitable. And after five years of brutal suffering, Splinter passed quickly and quietly in the middle of the night. The boys awoke the next morning ignorant. They'd already eaten before they went to go check on their father. When they entered the infirmary where he had spent the last months of his life, the turtles were horror struck. Though they had all been preparing themselves for this moment, none of them believed it would have been that day. They thought they had more time. Donnie calculated they had more time.

Once the initial shock ended, they took his body out to the sewer, leaving sewer rats to devour his remains. They kept his robe and his staff, setting them in the living room as a constant reminder. Draping the robe over the seat where he used to sit and setting the staff beside it made it feel like he was still there, watching TV with them.

The mourning period never ended. It never got easier. Every single day they'd wake up thinking it was all just a bad dream, and every day they would be disappointed. No one went by the dojo anymore. That entire section of the lair remained unentered. Even looking across the water basin caused great grief. With time, their mourning dwindled down from constant to occasional. There were triggers that brought about the worst days.

Two years after Splinter's passing, the turtles finally found it in themselves to leave the sewers. They trudged out of the lair and made their way to the surface world in the dead of night. Maybe a few rounds around the city would help them? They tried to clear their minds, jumping across rooftops and swinging from fire escapes. They raced each other and tried to outshine each other, just like the good old days. They even laughed once or twice.

After a few rounds around the city, they grew tired. Having not trained in two years, their skills went into hibernation, as well as their physical abilities. They stopped to catch their breath, discussing how out of shape they were. In the weeks to come, they found that trips to the surface brought them even the littlest amount of joy. It reminded of them of before, when they were young. Now growing older, over a decade passing since Raphael's disappearance. And the greater portion of the years being spent in suffering and grief. Time they can never get back. They vowed to stop the sulking. They vowed to live the rest of their lives seizing the day.

XxXRaphXxX

Raph left the sewers. He left the city. He left the state. He tried to get as far away from his family as possible. And he never wanted to go back. He swore he would never go back. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he was certain it wasn't back. He stood at the state line, crossing over into Pennsylvania. He sighed before stepping over into a new state for the first time in his life.

He lost track of time. He spent day and night trekking down the east coast. Before he realized how long he'd been gone, he found himself crossing the state line into Florida. He spent some time in the swampy Florida coast. The smell and atmosphere of the swamps reminded him of home. And even though he was sure he didn't want to return back, he did miss the comfort of others. He hadn't had any interaction since he left.

He stayed at the swamp for several weeks. This was his first decently long rest stop since he left New York City. And he enjoyed every minute he spent lounging about. He treated the swamp like a home. He forged a bed out of leaves, bathed in the murky waters. He managed to create a semi-decent lifestyle while he lived there. And while he lounged about, he wondered what his brothers were up to. He wondered how his father was. He wondered if they missed him at all. He was kind to the swamp and all of its previous inhabitants. However, the swamp was not as kind to him.

While he survived in this filthy environment, he contracted a temporal disease, Cryptosporidiosis. He suffered from the sickness for weeks, all alone. Often times he thought about his family. If they were there, he wouldn't have to deal with it all by himself. He remembered the times when he was sick back in New York. His family would do whatever they could to make him better. But in the swamps of Florida, he had no one.

However, after a few days of high fever, his brain started to suffer some damage. And by the end of his sickness, he had no memories at all. He'd forgotten all about his past. He no longer remembered his father, or his three brothers. He didn't remember his time in New York. He awoke one morning completely lost.

He wandered for a while, lost and confused. After many months he stumbled upon a canister of mutagen. He spent months watching it, seeing how it affected the organisms it came into contact with. He was disgusted. And then he realized he was one of them, and felt sick to his stomach. He vowed to terminate all mutants he ever came into contact with. And once he's taken care of the rest, he would terminate himself. He spent months trying to teach himself to fight again. Seeing the sais strapped into his belt, he figured wherever he came from, he knew how to use them. And after a long while he did manage to get good again. He wasn't sure how he compared, but he was good enough for the job. After weeks of tracking, he discoverd the source of the mutagen: Kraang. It took him several attempts to even penetrate the Kraang's bases, but eventually he got in. And took the time to learn how they operated. Raph dedicated his life to sending those slimey brain creatures back to whatever dimention they came from. Singlehandedly, he sent the Kraang fleeing from Earth. With the Kraang gone, Raph was able to dedicate the rest of his life to the extermination of mutants, wandering across the country in search of the Kraang's leftover monstrosities.

A/N: Thanks again to Kalianna R Landry for betareading again. I hope you like this chapter. I'm very happy about the two reviews, keep them coming and I'll keep the chapters coming. And sorry it's early Monday and not Sunday. Look for it again next Sunday! Hopefully it will work out for next Sunday this time. Much love as usual! Yours truly, .forever.1335


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